January Samvera Community Newsletter - call for 2025 stories; recaps of the December community sprint and fall developer training
Heather Greer Klein
Reflecting on the December Community Sprint
Call for your 2025 community stories
Reflecting on October’s Hyku & Hyrax Community Developer Training Camp
Open Repositories 2026 Online Conference call for proposals ends January 11th
Working and Interest Group calls for the month of January
In case you missed it: other news from the Samvera Community email list
1 – December Community Sprint Reflections
Thank you to everyone who participated in our December Community Sprint, especially Chris Colvard from Indiana University for volunteering to act as facilitator. Sprint participants advanced a number of development and documentation initiatives, including:
Drafting a shared glossary for Hyrax and Hyku terms
Hyrax test suite performance improvements
Work on Rails 8 upgrade for Hyrax
Pull requests for a number of Hyrax accessibility tickets
A draft Hyrax VPAT document
Hyku theming and branding documentation
Participants shared that the sprint worked well, with right-sized issues to work on both code and documentation needs. New participants helped refine the process, and felt supported in their work. Potential improvements for next time include a code reviewer role, prioritizing documentation issues, and potentially a theme for the sprint with specific issues prioritized and ready that fall within that theme.
You can read the full wrap up to see what the group worked on and reflections on what went well and what could improve for next time. Stay tuned for the next community sprint later this spring.
2– Call for your 2025 Community Stories
The Outreach & Engagement Group wants to collect and share your community stories from 2025. We want to show people outside Samvera what actually happens here, remind ourselves why this community works, and recognize the folks who've helped us out along the way.
We're not looking for polished marketing copy. We want real moments! Someone helped you debug a problem, you learned something from a conversation, you contributed something you're proud of, and so forth.
Short submission guidelines:
Be specific (names, situations, what actually happened)
Keep it brief (150-300 words is plenty)
Get permission if you're naming someone
Post it yourself on LinkedIn/Bluesky/your blog, post it in the #outreach-engagement Slack channel, or send it to hea...@samvera.org and we'll help amplify
If you've got a story but aren't sure if it fits, just share it. We'll figure it out :)
3 – Reflecting on October’s Hyku & Hyrax Community Developer Training Camp
The Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI) and the Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration and Innovation (PALCI) are pleased to announce the successful completion of the Hyku & Hyrax Community Developer Training Camp, held October 7–10, 2025, at the University of Pittsburgh.
The four-day, hands-on program—developed in partnership with the Samvera Community—demonstrates a shared commitment to strengthening open-source repository infrastructure through capacity building and community investment.
The program was funded in part through the Sustaining the Hyku Repository Platform project, supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) under grant number LG-256726-OLS-24.
Read the full recap and reflections on the Hyku for Consortia blog.
4 – Open Repositories 2026 Online Conference Call for Proposals closes January 11th
The 21st International Conference on Open Repositories (OR2026) will be held online June 8-11, 2026.
The theme for the OR2026 conference is: Open to All? Repositories at the Intersection of People, Practice, and Emerging Technologies - Exploring how repositories sustain open knowledge exchange while advancing FAIR principles, preservation, community building, and responding to the challenges and opportunities of emerging technologies.
Please visit the Call for Proposals page to learn more about the submission categories including a full list of submission templates that can be downloaded, recording and dissemination information for accepted proposals, and key dates. Note that all submissions must be made in ConfTool, our conference management tool.
The deadline for submissions is January 11, 2026.
Please note: This is a firm deadline for submissions and there will not be an extension.
We are thrilled about the opportunities an online conference provides and only plan to charge a small registration fee to attendees from “high income” countries to cover the online platform costs. Registration for all other attendees will be free.
5 – Working and Interest Group calls for the month of January
See all Samvera Community calls, meetings, and events on the Samvera Public Calendar
Weekly Samvera Tech call - all are welcome to the weekly call on Wednesdays at 12PM ET/9AM PT to discuss any and all technical issues from all versions of software, documentation requests, and open pull requests. Add the weekly Samvera Tech call to your calendar
Hyrax Interest Group - next meeting is Wednesday, January 14th at 11:30AM ET/8:30AM PT – Add the Hyrax Interest Group meetings to your calendar
Avalon User Roundtable - next meeting is Monday, January 19th at 1PM ET/10AM PT – Add the Avalon User Roundtable meetings to your calendar
Documentation Interest Group - next meeting is Tuesday, January 20th at 2:30PM ET/11:30AM PT – Add the Documentation Interest Group meetings to your calendar
Outreach & Engagement Working Group - next meeting is Wednesday, January 21st at 12PM ET/9AM PT – Add the Outreach & Engagement Working Group meetings to your calendar
Samvera Metadata Interest Group - the next meeting is Tuesday, January 27th at 2PM ET/11AM PT – Add the Metadata Interest Group meetings to your calendar
Hyku Interest Group - the next meeting is Thursday, January 29th at 11:30AM ET/8:30AM PT – Add the Hyku Interest Group meetings to your calendar
Repository Management Interest Group each month’s meeting is scheduled by a vote in the #repository-management channel on Slack.
Monthly Samvera Partners call - all staff of Samvera Partner institutions are welcome to join the monthly call for discussion, demos, updates, and information about Samvera governance. Add the monthly Partner call to your calendar
Chat with Heather Greer Klein, the Samvera Community Manager, by scheduling time during Community Manager Office Hours